What it means to me to be a designer

I‘m not a designer for money.

I run a design business for money, but that’s a different thing. The money has always come as an incidental, as an effect and not the cause. I design and often people want to give me money for it. That’s a healthy relationship and a good way to stay alive.

But I design because I love it. I design because when I don’t, odd things happen inside me and the world takes on a certain pallor.

I’m a designer because when I walk around in the city I can’t keep my eyes off storefront signs, sandwich boards, even newspapers in their stands. Everywhere I look is typography for me to study and I often wonder if I’d have made the same choices.

I’m a designer because I see bumper stickers with type so small it can’t be read unless you physically run into the other vehicle. I wonder about the thought process behind that choice and why the designer didn’t care more for his audience.

When I go to the movies, I often pay more attention to the opening credits than the rest of the movie because they’re fountains of inspiration to me. Pacing, typography, layering, composition, mood and how music and images go together…every movie is a semester of schooling for me.

While I hate watching the news on TV I love watching their opening sequences for the same reason. A lot of info has to go into very tight time and space constraints. They’ve got pictures of news anchors, the station logo, stock quotes superimposed over the Loch Ness monster, pictures of Seattle and random shiny bits in motion all over the place and somehow it works. It’s fascinating and I can’t tear my eyes from it. That’s another semester.

Then there’s the internet. I started designing websites because I wasn’t happy with what I saw. Many people were trying to make their businesses thrive on the internet, and I knew they were failing just by looking at their sites. Would you give your money to someone who actually thinks green with pink polka dots is a pleasing color scheme? Or that a flashing star background behind a horse running through a meadow somehow makes sense? Sites like these always left me with a haunting residue. Like what happens when you eat asparagus.

Then there are the great sites. The one-in-a-million site that has 96 awards listed in the footer, and which is so good I feel a pang of jealousy. I see those and wonder why I’m a designer at all, or if I’m even capable of such magic. Those are the times when I spend 48 straight hours reading books on design and doing tutorials, just to keep up with the talent around me if I’m to stand any chance at all.

I’m a designer because I’m probably not slick enough to be a politician, but I’m unwilling to let things slide as I see them. Design is how an artist changes the world, even if it’s just a page at a time.

That’s what it means to me to be a designer. You look around and you wonder.

How to make your ebooks look great

Having a nice looking ebook increases the chances of it being read by a factor of one gazillion.

Lately, I’ve been doing more ebook designing than any other type of work and it’s been a total blast.

But I’ve noticed a few questions keep coming up over and over in regards to technical terms, layout ideas, etc. I’m going to cover some of those basics in this post, both for general education purposes and also as an aide to potential clients as to what kinds of things are possible with their own books.

A couple of the things I’m going to cover are very basic common terms from the world of print. Well, basic to some people, but brand new to many others. I hope this post can serve as a good introduction and an idea generator.

We’ve all seen a lot of ebooks, some good, some bad and some absolutely atrocious. The bad ones have jumbled text that can’t be read, awful color schemes (if any color at all), poor graphic choices, etc.

The good ones are visual candy. They flow well, are harmonious and balanced, and are ultimately easy and fun to read.

The Absolute Bare Minimum

Regardless of anything else that goes into an ebook, whether it’s busy or subtle or full of color, the book has to be legible. If it can’t be read it’s 99% useless. Any book that leaves my shop has the base-line requirement of being easy on the eyes.

Portrait & Landscape

These are fairly common terms that we’ve probably all dealt with at work from time to time.

Portrait orientation, say with a standard 8.5″ x 11″ sheet of paper, is taller than it is wide. Landscape, think of an actual outdoor landscape, is wider than it is tall.

Each has its own look and benefits, but I generally create ebooks in landscape format. The reason for this is obvious: computer monitors are also in landscape format. A book in landscape format fits on the screen more naturally without getting chopped off.

Fonts

Some fonts are easier to read than others, so some are well used for main body copy while others are best reserved for chapter headings, pullquotes or any brief area of emphasis.

The two basic choices for the main body copy font are serif and sans-serif. Serif fonts have little serifs, or tails, on them like the image to the left.

Serif fonts are often considered better used for body copy, as the serifs act as trails or pointers that lead the eye from character to character. This can reduce eye strain and make the reading little smoother.

On the other hand, sans-serif fonts (”sans” meaning “without”) do not have the tails.

Sans-serif fonts can also work well for body copy, but because they lack the serifs, they often appear to be closer to together and jumbled. This, if not done well, can make for eye strain and tough reading and that’s no fun. So generally the sans-serif fonts are bumped up in size a bit, to increase legibility.

Personally, I find that as long as the font size is adequate, serif and sans-serif fonts work equally well and the choice comes down to preference.

Decorative Fonts

Here’s where we get to have a bit more fun. Chapter titles, for example, can be funky or grungy or any style at all. And since they’re only used for a sentence or two and are of larger font-size, we don’t need to worry about eye strain and legibility.

The exact style of font, of course, comes down to preference but it should at least fit the subject of the book. A business book wouldn’t use a title font that looks like barbwire or graffiti, although that would be perfect for an ebook on tattoo art.

Dropshadows

Dropshadow is just a fancy word for shadow, and I’m sure you’ve seen a million examples of them online. They’re insanely popular and I’m sure they’ll continue to be until the end of time because they’re an excellent way to give depth, realism and visual interest to the page.

Since they obviously obscure adjacent text a bit, they’re reserved for larger fonts and not body copy.

Dropcaps

The “T” at the beginning of this sentence is a dropcap, so called because it drops below its own line of text. It’s a nice, elegant way to introduce a body of copy and, again, break up the monotony of a large text block.

“The First Five”

There’s probably a professional trade name for this, but I’ve always referred to it as “the first five.” Many books use this convention, whereby the first few words of a chapter are styled with bold text, a larger font, etc. When coupled with an initial dropcap, this is a really slick way to introduce a chapter.

Pullquotes & Blockquotes

The terms pull-quote and blockquote are often used interchangeably, but I generally distinguish them as follows:

A pull-quote, also called a lift-quote, pulls something out of the body copy for re-emphasis. If you’ve got a great quote or statistic you want to reiterate, you can pull it out and give it emphasis as a pull-quote. And once I pull the quote out, I’ll tweak it and play with its margins until it looks cool and fits in with the surrounding text fields.

A blockquote, while basically the same thing at heart, has a couple minor differences. First, it’s called a blockquote because it’s arranged more in a block, left-justified.

This is a blockquote.
All my shiznit is left justified, yo.
That’s how we roll.

Seems a little more blocky, yes? Little more traditional than the pull-quote. The second reason it’s a blockquote and not a pullquote is that you don’t have to pull text from the copy. You can say anything you want in a blockquote, even useless drivel like I did.

Regardless, both are usually formatted in a bigger, bolder and more interesting font, and often appear in an entirely different color. It’s a perfect way to break up the visual monotony of a long span of text and add some graphic interest. And of course it’s a great way to emphasize a point.

Folios & Numbering

A folio is a great way to mark every page with an identical symbol or brand image, like “The Next 45 Years” in the corner of the image to the left.

A folio can be page numbers, a logo, a URL or any combination of elements. One of the cool things about using folios with ebooks (which are usually .PDF documents) is that you can use them to link back to your site. That way, no matter where your book ends up, your readers will be able to track you down by simply clicking on the folio bit in the corner.

Ornaments

I love the finishing touches and ornaments and little things that really give your book personality! There are two methods I use all of the time, if the client wants them of course.

One method is to take the first letter of a sentence or title and then duplicate it in the background. But the trick is to use a more scripty or ornamental font and lighten it a bit, so it ends up as just a ghost of a letter in the background. Depth, baby, depth! Looks great and can help reduce the blockiness of the page…check it out.

The second method is to just use flourishes, ellipses and dingbats at chapter’s end. In the image to the left, that top one there is a dingbat. Yup, that’s what it’s called! Whatever you call it, they make a nice finishing touch and brings resolution to the end of the writing.

So, all in all, there are quite a few ways to distinguish your ebook from the 16,000 others that were published while I was writing this sentence. When done right with proper typography, colors and layout, an ebook can become a very special item indeed. In fact, quite a few bloggers and writers are publishing collector-type ebooks. They’ll produce a series of ebooks, perhaps one per month or season. And while each is similar, they can be individualized with different covers, color schemes or even seasonal ideas.

Special thanks to Alex Blackwell for letting me use images from the recently published ebook he and I designed. I’ve done quite a few ebooks recently, but I have to say that Alex’s book was a real treat to work on. Not only did he allow me quite a bit of artistic freedom, he’s also a top-notch writer. I highly suggest going to Alex’s site to pick up a copy of his book. You’ll be quite inspired, I’m sure. Plus, you’ll see what’s probably my best ebook design ever.

So…you want a sexy ebook? Let me know if you do and I’ll get to work on it!

What is branding and why do you need it?

Branding is not a logo. It’s not a fancy font or tagline, and it’s not a color. And it’s not some “indefinable quality that you’ll know when you see.” Designers say this when they want to charge you a bazillion dollars while they’re walking the astral plane looking for “true essence.”

Branding is none those things, though each may play a part.

What branding really is

Let me ask you some questions and you’ll understand the simplicity of branding:

1. When you see the golden arches of McDonalds, what do you think of?
2. When you see the multi-colored font of Google on their home page what do you feel?
3. When you see a Nazi swastika, does it elicit any emotional or analytical response from you?
4. When you see the apple on a Macintosh computer, what happens inside you?

The answer you thought of or what you felt for any of those questions is branding.

When I was a kid, the golden arches of McDonalds meant a quarter pounder with cheese, ice cream sundae and getting to bond with my dad. Now, as an adult and after two unfortunate incidents back-to-back, I see the golden arches and think of vomiting. Unfortunately for McD’s, both cases are equally steeped in branding.

When I see a Xerox logo I think and feel absolutely nothing. I don’t own a Xerox and I don’t really want to, though I couldn’t tell you why. I don’t even remember ever using one, but that’s also branding, isn’t it? The logo means nothing to me.

When I see the Macintosh apple, I don’t really think of anything specifically, but I do get the same feeling that I do when I’m creating something. I get that feeling of magic, and that something utterly insanely bitchin is going to happen soon.

These are all the province of branding. I guess we could loosely define branding as: the message or feeling that is delivered or evoked or recalled upon viewing an identity of some sort.

If a company gives you the warm-fuzzies, that’s branding. If a company makes you want to laugh, that’s branding. If a website looks shoddy and unprofessional, that’s their branding.

What’s the problem with your website?

Though we’re going to talk about websites now, what follows is true for brick-and-mortar companies as well. It’s also true for individuals. Remember that when you’re on your next job interview.

Why your site’s brand is suffering

• The problem is that you’re using a free theme that hundreds or thousands of other people are using.
• The problem is that you created or hired someone to create a logo and you slapped it on your site, thinking it would insta-brand you.
• The problem is that when someone stops by your site, you’ve got (according to web usability surveys) about three seconds to grab them before they leave.
• The problem is that you bought a $49 or $99 cookie-cutter logo from a logo house and it doesn’t really do much for your site.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to put myself out of work here. A good logo is an absolute necessity, because it is part of your total branding package.

But done wrong, a logo is nothing more than a bumper sticker. It might be entertaining or look great, but it doesn’t do anything for the saleability of the car.

It has to be the right logo and it has to work hand in hand with the rest of your site and whatever qualities you want it to exude. A humorous website, for example, with an ultra-slick medical looking logo is not really creating a cohesive brand.

In contrast, a medical website with a shoddy logo isn’t creating a very good brand either.

A sports website with a sports logo…that fits, right? Branding.

How will branding solve your problems?

If your website is suffering any of the above woes, proper branding can alleviate them all. As we looked at already, branding is partially the visual identity of a company, but it’s also the feeling they elicit from you. A strong brand will give feelings of:

Familiarity
Comfort
Stability
Professionalism
Memorability
Market Domination
Success

Good branding will give you these qualities (if it’s done right).

If you’re in doubt about whether or not you need a brand, that should end here. You do. It’s more important than ever. There are millions and millions of websites and companies out there. And with the speed of technology and communications being the way they, we see more brands and we see them faster than ever before.

In this constant stream of brands and products, if yours blends in, it’s gone. Poof.

My brand, a quick case study

Off to the right there is a little 125×125 badge I use for advertising. As of this moment, this badge shows up in exactly three other places on the whole internet.

Obviously I designed that badge and logo, but let’s say I’d paid a designer to do it. Ordinarily something like that would cost from $200 up to $500. Is that worth it?

Within the past two weeks, this badge, from the three locations in which it shows up, has already earned me over well $500 in commissions. I know the brand is growing and inspiring confidence because I receive tons of emails that say, “I keep seeing your little hook logo all over the place.”

Why does this badge work?

First, it’s an alright design. I mean…it’s not horrid to look at. You know, there’s no green with pink stripes and six different fonts. So that’s alright.

Second, it’s legible, which isn’t necessarily true for all 125×125 badges you see.

Third, the tagline “Design that kills…in a good way” is sort of funny-ish. Or maybe it’s just weird, but it’s not boring or stagnant or stuffy.

But as we’ve discussed, such a badge doesn’t make a brand. That’s why I make it my first priority to do other things that solidify the image I want to portray. I do the things a tiny ad like that couldn’t possibly do on its own.

Other parts of the branding package

Customer service : When a customer or potential customer writes me, I usually write back within 5 minutes or so. That’s pretty much unheard of online, unless you happen to know that your customers are the most important part of your business.

Sometimes it takes me longer to write back, but usually not. And if it ever takes me more than 24 hours to get back to a client, something is awfully wrong. Like possibly my head fell off or I was attacked by gargoyles in my bathroom.

Personality : When I write my customers back, they get the same service as my badge portrays, namely that I don’t act like something I’m not. I have a sense of humor that I don’t try to hide. I have a personality that isn’t “put on hold” until I get to know you better. Who I am makes my work what it is. They’re inseparable.

This isn’t by any means me patting my own back. It’s just what I do for my brand.

So, long story still far too long, get yourself a slick logo. Get a nice website. Do what you can to polish your identity, but don’t stop there. Act the professional and be professional in what you do.

Your branding will never be better!

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